All you digital nuts can delete this note without going any further! For those who still roll their own, however: After a number of years of using stricly Fuji "crystal archive" RA4 paper, I just tried a box of Kodak Ultra III. I made about 25 trial prints this week. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised! Compared with the Fuji: 1) Much more neutral whites and blacks. Whites are really white (well, nearly so, even on the densitomiter), and the blacks are really black. 2) Contrast is "half a grade" to "one grade" greater than the Fuji. 3) Overall saturation is considerably greater than the Fuji, across all colors. From a decent negative, you get a print which will remind you a lot of a cibachrome. Yet, you can still get delicacy with careful exposure. 4) Very noticeable improvement in shadow detail (and "depth" of shadow detail). No mushiness in the dark tones. 5) Much "cleaner" reds and pastels; easier (for some reason!?) to balance out color casts. Greens are much less yellow-biased; always a problem for me with the Fuji. 6) I bought the "glossy" surface. It is glossy, but "not quite" as glossy as the Fuji; it has a very slight texture. I like it. 7) The paper base is slightly heavier. 8) It's pretty fast -- it has almost identical paper speed with the Fuji. Downsides: 1) It's VERY MUCH fussier about the chemicals than the Fuji. The Fuji doesn't care very much if you just ran 5 prints in 6 oz of developer. The Kodak does care, a lot. Replenishment, time, and temperature matter more than with the Fuji. You'll use about 2x the net amount of chemical (if you're a miser, like me) with this paper than you would with the Fuji. 2) It's biased about +10 or +12 units cyan from printing the same negative on Fuji; hardly a huge difference. For what it's worth. I've now produced a few of very noticeably clean and striking display prints.... Don Feinberg ducque@mindspring.com
